Sonic Adventure DX

1999 just called. They want their game back. Yes Sega… you heard me. Give them their damn game back!

That’s right. [i]Sonic Aventure DX[/i] is the exact same game that was released on the Dreamcast back in ’99. Sure, it was a great game then, but for a game with the subtitle of “Director’s Cut,” it seemed like there was very little cutting or directing of this game. As I was playing it, I could not imagine how bad it really was. I was sitting there thinking to myself “When I played this in ’99, was this game REALLY this bad? Apparently it really was. I could not believe it.

Now… I’m not trying to say [i]Sonic Adventure[/i] for the Dreamcast was a horrible game. For it’s time, it was a good solid game, and certainly not bad for Sega’s first REAL 3D Sonic attempt(I don’t count Sonic 3D Blast any more than I count Super Mario RPG as being a 3D title). My gripe is not with the original game, but with the lack of updating, additions, and streamlining in this game. I should not die from an in game glitch that is well known and in the original Dreamcast version of the game. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll explain.

The most major glitch that I am referring to had a habit of killing me frequently. It was in the first zone and you, as Sonic, would be running down a long narrow curve. There are some rings that I would tend to grab on the way down, but if you hit the wall at a certain point that the rings happened to direct you to, you would fall through the platform, end up in the water, and die. This happened to me 3 times during the same gaming session. I was QUITE annoyed. I tried to ignore this though and just assumed that the Director didn’t realize this flaw and forgot to Cut it.

Still, another flaw in the game was with speech. The voice acting was the same horrible garbage from before, but I was at least able to tolerate that. The problem was, and still is, that the music played louder than the voices at the time, so it made it difficult to understand what was being said without subtitles. For me this wasn’t a huge issue since I played the original Sonic Adventure and already knew the storyline, but for those who never owned a Dreamcast, this must have been a pain in the ass for them to have to deal with.

I don’t want to say nothing but bad things about this game, but all the good stuff is the same stuff that was good the last time around. Playing a 3D Sonic game is the biggest pro. The problem is, for an out of date game, this just doesn’t feel as special as it used to.

In conlusion, this is one of the worst games I have played on the Gamecube. It is just a straight port where no Director did any Cuts whatsoever. There were no upgrades, no improvements… nothing. Due to all the still existent game glitches and the fact that I originally beat the first [i]Sonic Adventure[/i] with all the characters, I couldn’t even bring myself to finish the game as Sonic. I got halfway through and just had to put it down for the sake of my sanity. Nothing has improved in this game whatsoever. There are no additional levels, mini-games, or add-ons of any kind as far as I could tell. I will never be able to get back the hours I wasted on this horrendous piece of trash, which saddens me immensely. I could have been playing a far better game with my time, but alas, I did not…

I’m sorry Sega. I love you like a sister, but this time around, you left me greatly disappointed.